This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
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Film & TV
How Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe Became Jews — Through Andy Warhol’s Eyes
On a spring day in 1956, Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg paid a visit to Marilyn Monroe’s New York City apartment. Before the 30-year-old actress tied the knot with playwright Arthur Miller that summer, she wanted to convert to Judaism. In a neatly typed letter set inside a display case at the Jewish Museum’s new exhibit…
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Four Decades Later, They’re Still Banking on ‘The Rothschilds’
Book writer Sherman Yellen and lyricist Sheldon Harnick say the timing is spot-on for a new look at their 1970 musical “The Rothschilds,” which has been revised and dubbed “Rothschild & Sons” for its October run with The York Theatre Company, in New York. The Tony-nominated musical, with a score composed by the late Jerry…
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A Plea for Remembrance — and for Forgetting
Not too long ago, my bubbe and zayde lived in a crowded apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was a place filled with books and Yiddish newspapers strewn over the armchairs (the Forward, Die Morgen Journal, Der Algemeiner). There was a sense of holy, righteous and predetermined doom, as though all the…
The Latest
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Books ‘Series of Unfortunate Events’ Author Gives $1M to Planned Parenthood
Daniel Handler is finally trying to make the world a less unfortunate place. The Jewish author of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and his wife, illustrator Lisa Brown, have pledged a million dollars to Planned Parenthood, . Handler, known to readers under the pen-name Lemony Snicket, tweeted out the news on Tuesday afternoon: .@lisabrowndraws &…
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Did Dismantling of States Make the Worst of the Holocaust a Reality?
Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning By Timothy Snyder Tim Duggan Books, 462 pages, $30 In two generations, we have witnessed a massive shift in our attitude toward the Holocaust: from regarding it as incomprehensible, defying human understanding, to trying to construct rigorous, often competing historical explanations for its causes and contours. There…
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How Solomon Schechter’s Daughter Became a Card-Carrying Communist
<image In my mind’s eye, I see my great-aunt Amy. She is leading a march, striding toward a line of police officers wielding batons, her hands clenched in determination and worry. She is speaking at a rally, extolling the need for working men and women to organize, warning that the bosses will resist efforts to…
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Worshipping Koufax, Worshipping God
My father, a first-generation American, was an accountant, which is relevant because he was a sedentary, chubby, somewhat bookish man who never tossed a ball with me, not once, and who paid no attention to Major League Baseball. When I was growing up in the 1960s, there were millions of Jewish fathers who were accountants…
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The Thrill of Family for Bestselling Novelist Brad Meltzer
Brad Meltzer, 45, is a bestselling novelist of thrillers like “The President’s Shadow,” and children’s books like “I Am Albert Einstein,” as well as a host for the To research his thrillers, Meltzer has received help from fans like Presidents Bill Clinton and George HW Bush. His wife, Cori Meltzer, 45, is a lawyer and…
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Music Pianist James Rhodes and the Keys to Survival
Born in 1975, the British Jewish musician James Rhodes has experienced a fairly dramatic trajectory, which he described in his recent autobiography, “Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication and Music.” As Rhodes revealed in a blog in the Daily Telegraph: “When I was at school I was sexually abused. Let me clarify: I was serially…
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‘Son of Saul’ Captures Intense Brutality of Auschwitz
The most iconic face of this year’s Cannes Film Festival did not belong to Emma Stone or to Cate Blanchett, — to mention two celebrities who walked the red carpet — nor to Ingrid Bergman, whose silver image graced the festival’s banners and posters; it was the sunken, haunted face of Geza Röhrig the 48-year-old…
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Film & TV How an Orthodox 6-Year-Old Became the Star of ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’
When five-year-old Asher Blinkoff strode off into the audition room, his father, Saul, was a little nervous. An old pro of the movie industry, Saul has directed several films himself and worked for Walt Disney Animation Studios before that. He knew what to expect, but to leave his son in a room full of strangers…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish עכטע חסידישע מעשׂיות, איבערגעזעצטע אױף פּױלישAuthentic Hasidic tales, translated into Polish
די אַנטאָלאָגיע ווערט באַגלייט מיט פֿילמעלעך, וווּ באַקאַנטע פּוילישע פּערזענלעכקײטן לײענען אָדער דערצײלן איבער די מעשׂיות.
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News This national park would honor a Jewish philanthropist — if Republicans get back on board
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Film & TV He saved dozens of kids in Auschwitz — he kept it a secret for nearly the rest of his life
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Looking Forward I’m probably going to be on the government’s list of Jews at UPenn
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